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With a provincial election expected to be called in the coming weeks, Alberta’s political parties are pushing to nominate their slates of candidates. Not surprisingly, the governing Progressive Conservatives are close to choosing candidates in all 87 constituencies. At fifty-one,… Continue Reading →

No one can say Rachel Notley hasn’t upped the Alberta NDP’s game since she was elected party leader in October.

Yesterday, the provincial New Democrats put out a biting public statement on their proposed amendments to Premier Jim Prentice’s so-called Alberta Accountability Act that was funny enough to make me laugh out loud.

The Alberta Tory talent pool in 2014. Shallow, and not much fun for the guy in charge. Actual Alberta PC leaders may not appear as illustrated. Below: The real Mr. Jim Prentice. Main photo grabbed from the Internet.

Never mind the transition team. What about the cabinet?

It’s not just a question of who will be in Alberta Premier Select Jim Prentice’s minimalist new pre-general-election Progressive Conservative cabinet – Ken Hughes, c’mon down! – but who won’t be.

It’s also a question of who gets stiffed, regionally speaking: Calgary, Edmonton, or the countryside – which has already gone over to (Read more…)

TweetA new provincial cabinet was sworn-in this morning, one a week after the cabinet shuffle was announced. The original announcement, made by press release at the unusual time of 4:45pm on Friday, December 6, was typical of a tactic used by government when it wants a story to be underreported. After facing a week of […]

TweetDo you drain a Lake of Fire or do you dam it? Whatever it takes, Wildrose Party activists are expected to moderate the tone of their policies at their weekend policy convention in the booming central Alberta city of Red Deer. A delicate and sometimes shaky coalition of libertarians and social conservatives (among other groups), […]

TweetIn a strange departure from the non-partisan politics of civic elections, it appeared for a moment today that three main candidates in Edmonton’s mayoral election were headlining a fundraiser for a Progressive Conservative Party constituency association. Municipal Affairs Minister Doug Griffiths was even slated as its host. Once the event came to the attention of […]

TweetMike Allen is the second MLA to resign from the Progressive Conservative caucus since last year’s election. The Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo MLA resigned today from the Tory caucus after he was arrested in a prostitution sting in St. Paul, Minnesota. The first-term MLA and former Wood Buffalo municipal councillor was in St. Paul to represent the Government [...]

You’d think it would be easy to run a petroleum-soaked, cash-rich jurisdiction like Alberta, but a day seldom seems to pass out here on the western edge of the Great Plains without our governing Progressive Conservative Party suffering another pratfall or embarrassment.

But how many Albertans know that so many of these scandals bedevilling our permanent governing party have been uncovered by the same (Read more…)

TweetEdmonton-Manning MLA Peter Sandhu has resigned from the Progressive Conservative Caucus after a CBC investigation revealed that a company owned by the politician had accumulated a trail of unpaid debt. The report, by investigative reporter Charles Rusnell, also found that Mr. Sandhu made a false statement in a sworn affidavit. It is not uncommon for [...]

TweetUnofficial political donation records published by Elections Alberta yesterday show that Premier Alison Redford‘s Progressive Conservative Association is not in the robust financial situation its leaders are accustomed to over the past four-decades in office. At least not in 2012, when the Tory Party was eclipsed by its main rival in fundraising amounts. Danielle Smith‘s Wildrose [...]

Just before we get into full election mode, with all the name calling and accusations and all that stuff that makes politics such a classy profession, I’d like to take a few moments before I launch into 28 days of name calling and accusations to say a few nice words about two true gentlemen who are leaving politics.

The election call marks the end of a number of political careers. Some of them have been inconsequential, coming and going leaving little more than an ass impression in a legislature chair. I’m speaking of guys like Doug Elniski, Carl Benito and